Golf ranges, both outdoor and indoor, are commonplace and serve to permit a golfer to practice a variety of shots with different clubs. While practice is required if a golfer wishes to improve their game, many golfers find practice at a golf range to be quite boring, particularly in comparison to actual play. Accordingly, Accu-Sport International, Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C. has developed an apparatus for simulating a golf game at a practice range as described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,924 to James W. Kluttz, et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety.
As described by the Kluttz '924 patent, the golf game apparatus includes a display positioned adjacent to the tee box of the practice range to display a simulated golf hole layout. Following a golf shot, the golf game apparatus determines the total distance of the shot based upon the actual flight time of the golf ball, the linear flight distance of the golf ball to an initial impact position and a simulation of the anticipated roll of the golf ball following impact. As a result, the display can also provide an indication of the final resting position of the golf ball relative to the simulated golf hole layout. The golf game apparatus of the '924 patent therefore provides a golfer with a significant amount of information regarding their practice shots, including the linear flight distance and the total distance of each shot. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,898,388 to Bryce P. Beard, III, et al. which describes a system including a number of vibration sensors for determining the impact location of a golf ball and a display for providing a golfer with a visual representation of the relative position of the impact location with respect to a predetermined target.
While the devices described by the Kluttz '924 patent and the Beard '388 patent represent great advances in the art, difficulties can arise if two or more golfers are hitting golf balls at the practice range at the same time. In these circumstances, conventional devices for determining the impact location of a golf ball will be generally unable to distinguish between the golf balls hit by each of the golfers. As a result, these conventional devices will be unable to reliably determine the impact location of a golf ball hit by any one of the golfers since the respective impact locations of the golf balls hit by the other golfers may be misinterpreted as the impact location of the golf ball hit by the golfer of interest.
The devices described by the Kluttz '924 patent and the Beard '388 patent have difficulty distinguishing between the golf balls hit by a number of golfers since these device do not track the golf balls during flight but, instead, await impact of the golf balls within the target area in order to detect the respective impact locations of the golf balls. Accordingly, tracking systems have been developed which track the golf ball during flight from the tee box to the target area. For example, Accu-Sport International, Inc. has also developed a system including a video camera and an associated video frame processor for tracking the flight of a golf ball as described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,342,051 and 5,489,099 to David B. Rankin, et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety. While tracking systems can accurately determine the flight path and resulting impact location of a golf ball hit by one of many golfers at a practice range, tracking systems can only monitor one golfer at a time. As a result, a practice range having a number of tee boxes or hitting bays would have to purchase several tracking systems in order to track the golf balls hit by golfers from different ones of the tee boxes, thereby significantly increasing the cost to the practice range in comparison to non-tracking systems.